Roots 'N' Blues Isn't Just About the Music

In our eyes, there are two major festivals in Columbia, Missouri each year: True/False Film Festival in March and the Roots ‘N’ Blues ‘N’ BBQ Festival at the end of September. The whole town seems to be there, you get to be a part of something bigger than Columbia without having to travel, and the rest of the state has their eyes right here for a moment.

For a music festival that has BBQ in their name, you may come for the music, but you stay for the food. Vendor Row becomes the thoroughfare of nourishment for the tens of thousands of festival goers who spend the major part of their day dancing, waving, and singing to their favorite or newly discovered artists all weekend.

What we love about Roots ‘N’ Blues is that they seem to prioritize local vendors and the number of vendors seems to grow each year. Some of our favorites, who you can routinely find slinging their noms over the three-day festival run are: Peggy Jeans Pies, Giofre Apiaries Honey Ice Cream, Glenn’s Cafe, Jamaican Jerk Hut, Big Daddy’s BBQ, Manzo’s Pizza, Ozark Mountain Biscuit Truck, and Grill-A Brothers, to name a few. As you can tell, the offerings don’t end at BBQ. You can eat your way through as many vendors as there are artists playing music throughout the weekend, and even the beer has a local edge with Logboat Brewing and Bur Oak Brewing being accessible at many tents throughout the festival grounds. We even came across Well Being Brewery out of the St. Louis area for all you non-alcoholic beer drinkers.

If you were one of the lucky VIP ticket holders, you also had your fair share of fantastic food offerings from places like Peachtree Catering and Room 38.

We love seeing the community benefit from these large, regional events that have grown out of the local community here in Columbia themselves. It’s truly a grass-roots effort to support and grow these events, which have a major impact on the local producers and restauranteurs in the town we are living by giving them an opportunity to feed and water the attendees.